A rather interesting suspect list

…

Michael had drawn up his suspect list, but he knew that list was not going to be exhaustive.

He would be at the top, the spouse always was, and for extra emphasis, he wrote it in capitals.

Lady Adria would be there, her best friend, it would be easy to slip her the poison, but why?

The General, there was a piece of work, and probably his number one candidate, but again, motive?

Genevieve? He didn’t like her, and the feeling was mutual. The fact Agatha was about to literally pull the rug out from under her was reason enough, but she hadn’t been there long.

The Office PA – She had the means but not the motive, but then, stranger things had happened with people least likely to …

The other PA – Again plenty of opportunity, but why?

All six members of the charity staff. It could be one of them, but it was unlikely. Again opportunity, but no motive.

The board members. No!

Her father. Well, his money was on the old man. She had surpassed him in popularity and in achieving accolades for her work whereas he was constantly beating off the reporters accusing him of all manner of infractions. Motive and means, and one of his businesses dealt in poisons.

The boyfriend who wasn’t. If the boy was as dumb as he tried to make people believe, then maybe, but Agatha had picked him for a reason, and it wasn’t longevity. He had no reason to want her dead, considering he was making the most of her free accommodation.

The children, if only for a moment. They hated her, but that was normal. Neither would want to see her dead. It was a little odd they were not more upset though.

Monte, though only as guilt by association. Definitely no.

The IT expert. She was an enigma wrapped up in a puzzle. She had information and wasn’t going to share it. Yet.

…

There had to be more, people she associated with, friends, and or enemies. The police would add everyone and then remove them one by one.

It was a passing thought, but Michael knew if he could use field interrogation techniques, he could shorten that list dramatically, and very quickly.  Perhaps he still might, if the opportunity arose, depending on the policeman assigned to the case and whether he was willing to share.

He would wait and see what happened.

…

Words today, 1,732, for a total of 42,439

The investigation begins

…

Detective Chief Inspector Davis and Detective Sargeant Bains step into the frame as the investigating officers.  The Chief Inspector had been expecting his last year before retirement to be one of the cases that required more time completing the paperwork than investigating, and Sargeant Bains under his watchful eye because of past misdemeanours that nearly had him sent back to uniform.

Both had read the case notes and the Chief Inspector had queried the delegation of the case to him because it was the sort of case the fast tracker would seize upon.

It got a very severe reprimanding look, along with the statement ‘There are eyes above both our paygrades watching this with very keen interest, so don’t muck it up’.

That, of course, meant there was going to be high-level interference, that it had gone to a fast-track inspector who wisely wanted nothing to do with it.  Maybe his retirement would come early.

Davis may have thought the interference was going to come from the victim’s family, he was well aware of who her father was in the scheme of political and other arenas, but he hadn’t known about or met Michael yet.  That was going to be the highlight of that first day.

For both of them.

…

Words today, 1,867, for a total of 40,407

This was not what I envisioned

…

This story started out intending to have an ex-husband, thinking he had been divorced from his wife many years before, suddenly being informed that his wife had died.

Yes, she was rich, yes it was a marriage of inconvenience, and yes, she was a bratty spiteful child to her parents not above pulling off a stunt to spite her parents, but for however a brief period they were together, there was a very definite thing between them.

Neither was supposed to forget the other, just know they were out there, and a reunion might be possible in the future.

And yes, that trope that the pair had children and he was never told about it was a trite touch, but I liked the idea.  The fact the children were following in the mothers’ footsteps, well that seemed logical, and a bugbear for the father, when he finds out.

I didn’t plan to have her murdered.

That came along when I was reading up on poisons for another story I was writing at the time, the sort that cannot be detected unless the coroner is one of those fastidious types who won’t just call it a simple death.

Yes, he was supposed to slide into her world, and once again thank the lucky stars he had missed all of it. 

He was supposed to accept the invitation to sort out the mess, and somehow dodge the larger responsibility of looking after the children and the estates that might come with an inheritance. 

After all, it was difficult living in her residence, dealing with servants, and not having to do anything because everything was provided.  He could have, perhaps, but that was not his life.  It was just one of many sticking points that broke them up.

But murder?

Now he was going to have to stick around and find out who did it, and why.

…

Words today, 1,407, for a total of 38,840

No more surprises, please?

…

Meetings, legal jiggery-pokery, dealing with recalcitrant and obstructive people, figuring out how to deal with people, the sort of skills Michael never acquired because he never really needed them, leave him exhausted, angry, and seriously considering going into hiding.

Accepting the role of fixer-upper of all things Agatha had not turned out to be the two-day doddle he was expecting.

That dive into the even murkier world of high finance, the rich and powerful, the aristocracy, what not-for-profits were supposed to be about, and somehow strayed from the path of good, and into something else, was an education in itself.

Perhaps it was his ‘outside the window’ view that gave him the edge over all the slick talking and fast-talking that people in the business seemed to do so well, baffling people from his side of the tracks with what could only be described as bullshit.

But that was not the worst of it.

A knock on the door to his new, but self-proclaimed temporary residence, delivers Howard with an envelope that has the sort of news that had that ‘knock the wind out of you’ effect.

Agatha was murdered.

…

Words today, 1,921, for a total of 37,433

Memories are sometimes best left in the closet.

…

A dreaded visit to the boarding school to see the twins, her children being looked after until he arrived to collect them, brought back a whole raft of memories of his time at school, and not in a good way.

Resentful, sullen, definitely the result of substance abuse, and a whole lot of those issues, they instantly dislike, and disbelieve he’s their father, not that it matters, he had the documentary proof.

Agatha’s assessment of the headmaster was spot on, a man who would exploit the plight of a family to extract a sizable donation to forget anything that might be detrimental to the school and the family.  It was the nature of business where the rich were concerned.

Michael was annoyed that it hadn’t taken very long before he slipped into her murky world.

That old expression ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’ comes home to roost, and he is led on a brief odyssey before the children’s solution is found.  A month in a new type of detox was going to be the first stage of their rehabilitation. 

…

Words today, 2,334, for a total of 35,512

Reliving the past

…

A visit first to Agatha’s parents was not the nightmare he was expecting, considering the last one, being treated like something the cat dragged in, handed a large envelope with money in it, and the signature on a piece of paper saying he would never return, or come back into her life.

He was not proud of his actions that day, and it haunted him for a long time after, but it was for the so-called best.  Their mixed marriage was never going to work, no matter how much she wanted to piss her father off, and he knew it.

It didn’t take long to realise the parents didn’t want anything to do with the children, that their opinion of their grandchildren was less than stellar, and that he would have to do something about them.

Agatha’s own description was hardly a recommendation, but she had dropped the ball once that parenting thing had got too hard, and chose the easiest option, sending them away to an institution that was supposed to turn them into individuals others could use as an example.

Of course, that went horribly wrong, as any normal person would expect.  Children needed both hands-on parenting and discipline.  Instead, they were left to find their own way, and it was the wrong way, the result of too much money and too little commonsense.

From observing Agatha, Michael knew the children were never going to get the parenting they needed from their grandparents, who conveniently advised they could not be tapped to take over their care, so his mission just got a lot longer and far more difficult.

…

Words today, 1,942, for a total of 33,178

Revenge is best served cold.

…

Though revenge is not what Michael wanted to get caught up in, it was the people with whom he had to see that had him thinking that way.

Michael knew from bitter experience that the world would be a better place without half the people in it, the half that made up the cheats, liars, self-serving, egotistical twits, and pompous asses.

He’d seen enough of those when he and Agatha had been together.

Dealing with a chap Agatha had had what had to be described as a fling, seemed to think that an invitation to stay at one of her apartments until he found his own was the same as being married.

That aristocratic self-entitlement was enough to have Michael considering whether a three-hour torture session in a disused factory where no one would hear the screams, might just teach him the error of his assumptions.  Sadly, it didn’t come to that, but there were plenty of others on the list.

…

Words today, 1,810, for a total of 31,236